Developers in Vogue Organizes First Stakeholder Meeting for the Pathways to Sustainable Employment (PaSE)Project

We organized our first Consultative Stakeholder meeting on June 23rd, 2020. The meeting, held at the Developers in Vogue Center,was a sequel to the Ecosystem Mapping which sought to engage various stakeholders in the community to create an enabling support base to promote the entrepreneurship ecosystem in Accra. A categorized list of organizations was shared with the mapping team with in–person meetings carried out earlier this year as part of our partnership with Ghana Tech Lab under the Pathways to Sustainable Employment (PaSE) project. This project is funded by the MasterCard Foundation under its Young Africa Works (YAW) initiative which seeks to create 30 million jobs in Africa by 2030.

The event had in attendance various stakeholders within the Accra metropolis. They were categorized under 6 distinct pillars, namely, Human Capital, Finance, Government and Policy, Media and Culture, Market, Support and Infrastructure,under the theme: “The Role of Web Technology for Digital Transformation of the Local Economy for Job Creation and Economic Development”. The objective of the meeting was to engage stakeholders in dialogues on maximizing web technology for economic growth. There were two main sessions:

1) A forum where stakeholders under each pillar delivered presentations under Web Technology: potential and opportunities, key challenges and problems facing their industries, key existing market opportunities and market needs, skills required to satisfy the current market needs and the creation of potential new markets by web technology.

2) Focus group discussions where stakeholders were grouped into pillars and tasked to come up with three key policy solutions to help promote web technology for a digital economy considering the challenges faced in their industries.

Policy solutions were gathered by our volunteers and presented by pillar leads. Below are some of the policies from the focus group discussion:

• Government should partner the various tech hubs to provide seed funding. There should be low interest rates on loans and flexible loans.
• There should be hands on training for people in the government sector to bring them abreast with tech trending for better productivity.
• Agencies in charge of registering programs and approving startups should have strict and good standards.
• The country should concentrate on making sure the younger ones have strong foundation in Web Technology by introducing it on the basic level.
• Programs should be based on digital literacy, equipping trainees to develop effective approaches to problem solving. The Flips learning approach could be used. Flips learning is a strategy and type of blended learning focused on student engagement and active learning.
• There should be an independent body in the finance sector to see to the affairs of technological input.
• There should be flexible and easy information communication to the computer illiterate.
• Digital skills training must be provided to staff of media houses to build their capacity.
• Enforce policies on content management and security.
• National Media Authority should put in place measures that promotes decentralization of information at the local level.
• Enforce policies on content management and security.

These policies are key solutions that will greatly impact the ecosystem here in Accra and champion the goals we seek to achieve. Join us to effect positive change in the local economy.

To share your ideas and suggestions, please send an email to code@developersinvogue.org.